Konjunktiv II: The most important rules at a glance

You will come across the Konjunktiv II very often in everyday life. In the German language, it is used for three areas. Especially when we want to be polite, we often use the Konjunktiv II. But you can also use the Konjunktiv II for irreal wishes, conditions and comparisons.

Confusing for all those learning German as a foreign language is the number of verbs in a sentence and in which order they have to be placed. In this article, we will show you how to correctly formulate irreal wishes and conditions in the present and in the past.

What are unreal wishes, conditions and comparisons?

Unreal conditions can be similar to daydreams. You think or talk about things that do not correspond to reality. In irreal conditions, both subordinate clauses are in the subjunctive II:

Wenn ich mehr Geld hätte, würde ich mir einen Sportwagen kaufen.
Wenn die Kinder nicht so lange gespielt hätten, hätten sie den Bus nicht verpasst.

Sometimes we also use unreal comparative sentences. In this case, only the comparative clause is in the Konjunktiv II:

Peter sieht aus, als hätte er seit einer Woche nicht geschlafen.
Die Kinder benehmen sich, als müssten sie noch einiges lernen.

Sentence structure for conditional sentences

Conditional sentences are called “Konditionalsätze” or “Bedingungssätze” and consist of a main clause and a subordinate clause. The subordinate clause is introduced with words like “wenn”, “falls” or “sofern”.

For example, you can ask someone:

Wann machst du deine Hausübung?
Antwort: 
Wenn ich Lust dazu habe.
Oder als Konditionalsatz: 
Ich würde meine Hausübung machen, wenn ich Lust dazu hätte.
Oder umgekehrt: 
Wenn ich Lust dazu hätte, würde ich meine Hausübung machen.

So you can start the conditional sentence with the subordinate clause or with the main clause. You can also use modal verbs in conditional sentences. Let’s have a look at a table.

You can also begin conditional sentences with the main clause. You can see how this works in this table. Note the position of the subject (Ich) in the main clause.